Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Defends Fraud Oversight After Viral Video Alleges ‘Billion-Greenback’ Plot
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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s area of job defended his file in maintaining with a viral video purporting to bear uncovered broad fraud fascinating executive-funded day care facilities, asserting the Democratic governor has “labored for years to crack down on fraud” and has asked “the express legislature for added authority to take aggressive action.”
The 42-minute video by Slash Shirley, a 23-year-outmoded self-described “self reliant“ journalist, featured him visiting a few Somali-trudge day care facilities that looked as if it would be largely indolent despite allegedly receiving millions in express funds. He’s joined within the video by one other man, acknowledged as “David,” who claims to bear long been investigating such facilities.
Conservative media figures and Republican lawmakers bear seized on Shirley’s file as evidence of Democratic corruption, with the video generating bigger than 100 million views on X and bigger than 1.3 million on YouTube, the establish aside it changed into titled, “I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Greenback Fraud Scandal.”
Elon Musk has intently promoted the video on X, claiming it’s reached “bigger than any the everyday readership of all newspapers in The United States mixed,” whereas House Speaker Mike Johnson called it “jaw-shedding reporting” and Vice President JD Vance urged the 23-year-outmoded deserved a Pulitzer Prize.
In a voice to Fox News, a spokesperson acknowledged Walz has hired an open air firm to audit “high-risk packages,” ended a express program that used Medicaid funds to aid disabled folks receive housing after credible allegations of fraud, appointed a express program integrity director to conclude additional cases of fraud and supported criminal prosecutions.
“He has reinforced oversight — alongside with launching investigations into these specific facilities, one in every of which changed into already closed,” a spokesperson urged the outlet.
The governor’s area of job didn’t reply to TheWrap’s quick seek files from for observation. Shirley furthermore didn’t reply to a straight away seek files from for observation.
While Shirley’s video has dominated the political dialog on the supreme in most up to the moment days, and the younger journalist seemed Sunday on Fox News, the file has bought significantly much less attention from nationwide files shops. Speaker Johnson wrote on X that Shirley‘s video changed into “an indictment of both the nationwide files media and feckless, harmful area of job holders in Minnesota.”
He acknowledged the House Oversight Committee has requested records from Walz, Minnesota Felony professional Typical Keith Ellison, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department on the alleged fraud schemes, alongside with interviews with express officers. Web. James Comer (R-KY), the committee’s chairman, furthermore reiterated the investigatory effort in a Fox News interview on Monday.
“The walls are caving in on Tim Walz,” he acknowledged.
This jaw-shedding reporting is an indictment of both the nationwide files media and feckless, harmful area of job holders in Minnesota worship Tim Walz, who bear allowed these broad fraud schemes to occur for years.
News organizations bear lined fraud allegations in Minnesota, with the Fresh York Times, for one, reporting closing month on federal prosecutions of oldsters one day of the Somali neighborhood. The Times reported, in maintaining with law enforcement officers, that “ratings of folks made tiny fortunes by constructing corporations that billed express businesses for millions of dollars’ price of social products and services that were never supplied.”
Serene, Shirley’s video, conducted in a compelling first-particular person style and that comprises some pleasing pictures — one child center misspells the notice “studying” — has introduced fraud allegations within the express to a a lot wider viewers.
FBI Director Kash Patel acknowledged on X his company changed into responsive to “most up to the moment social media stories in Minnesota” and had already deployed sources within the express to dismantle alleged fraud schemes. He acknowledged among the 78 indictments within the express bear included cases of wire fraud and cash laundering, and he alluded to disorders of “immigration” responsible.
“The FBI believes that is purely accurate the tip of a really gargantuan iceberg,” Patel wrote on Sunday. “We are going to continue to educate the cash and provide protection to children, and this investigation deal stays ongoing. Furthermore, many are furthermore being referred to immigrations officers for doubtless additional denaturalization and deportation complaints the establish aside eligible.”
Cabinet secretaries additional amplified Shirley’s video in X posts on Monday. Training Secretary Linda McMahon acknowledged there were “now not sufficient phrases to checklist the breathtaking failure that has came about below the watch of” Walz, whereas Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer claimed the “broad Minnesota fraud community has abused federal funds all over a few federal businesses thanks to unbelievably miserable ‘management’” of Walz and Web. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).
“We are going to lift an conclude to the Somali fraud community,” the Department of Labor wrote in an X post quoting Chavez-DeRemer.
The video is a major coup for Shirley, who identifies as an self reliant journalist, even supposing his focal point tends to align with the supreme. Reuters described Shirley as a “pro-Trump influencer” closing year in laying out how he recruited Hispanic day laborers at a House Depot and paid them $20 to serve up signs in serve of then-President Joe Biden and immigration.
Shirley joined assorted announce material creators at White House roundtable on antifa in October, and Mission Veritas founder James O’Keefe named him the “Citizen Journalist of the Year” at O’Keefe’s “Citizen Journalist Gala” at Mar-a-Lago in November.
